


it's only just a crush (it'll go away)

by shortitude



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual!Daisy is my lifeblood, Coulson's desk is the true protagonist here, Daisy Johnson is the only Marvel superhero we deserve, Daisy's huge crush on Coulson, Daisy-centric, F/M, First Kiss, Oral Sex, Phil Coulson: human disaster, Phil definitely has a playlist for eating Daisy out, Phil has a playlist for sex probably, a LOT of hinted at minor ships, anti-climactic confession of feelings, mentions of Phil/Rosalind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 02:28:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5230418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortitude/pseuds/shortitude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(The nuns tell the children at supper that God is love.) Daisy Johnson falls in love with a lot of people in her life, but only one of them sticks. That's the one that hurts the most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's only just a crush (it'll go away)

**Author's Note:**

> Hints of Miles/Skye, May/Skye, Bobbi/Skye, Trip/Skye, Lincoln/Daisy. Welcome to my headcanon: bisexual Daisy Johnson. So this is to thank everyone for their plentiful contributions to the fandom this week. Thank you.
> 
> Super duper un-edited. I'll fix mistakes later.

**Izzy**

It happens while she’s still in St. Agnes, barely just begun toying with the idea of running away. She knows there’s a tendency to put runaways in the system, and juvie isn’t her idea of a fun summer (or a promising future), so if Mary Sue is going to run she is going to be smart about it. Her leisure time is spent in the library reading up on Boy Scout codes and _Robinson Crusoe_ and _Phileas Fogg_ , and any other man who’s travelled the world and not depended on sandwiches from home, because she already knows one fundamental truth: in this world, little girls are not allowed to run away, and if they do they don’t get to write books about it in the end.

So she has a plan, wait a couple more years (hope, for a couple more shots at finding a family that finally, _finally_ wants her) and then if nothing works, she’s gone. There’s a community program teaching kids in the system how to use computers, and that’s where it happens for the first time.

Izzy isn’t from St. Agnes. She has a home (a difficult one), and she has a mom (who works her ass off every day because her dad’s not with them anymore, fallen on a battlefield somewhere, that’s life and that’s war for you) but she comes to the IT classes because she wants to be an engineer when she grows up. Izzy is chatty and her behavior is uplifting, and for some reason she seems to take to the little orphan Mary Sue right away.

(The nuns tell the children at supper that God is love.)

Izzy makes Mary Sue want to run away so she can save up money and help her through college, a _good_ college instead of the community college that her single mother will be able to squeeze her in. Izzy makes Mary Sue want to keep up with her schoolwork, and be so smart that she’s worthy of being around the girl.

For a few months, she’s top of her class, and even the nuns are impressed with what a good influence Isabelle is on her; for the first time, St. Agnes loosens the reigns and allows outsider in just so Mary Sue can have a study group of two.

And then, they find them in the older girls’ dorms, just the two of them, giggling and blushing happy pink, lips still wet and a little swollen, and hearts so full of joy. (The nuns tell the children at supper that God is love. _But not like this, Mary Sue Poot, this is now how you show Him you love Him._ )

She never sees Izzy again. She hopes she gets to be an engineer. (She never loves Him again, either.)

 

 

**Miles**

It’s the first time she’s been around a man. She’s had boyfriends since she ran from St. Agnes and became Skye, but Miles is the first one she’s thought of as a _man_. He’s a little bit older, and a lot more experienced than her, and when he asks her out for a drink and buys her a beer, she thinks that maybe he’s not such a sleazy hacker jerk.

Miles asks her to join his gang, because she has potential and she has the backbone to do it. She’s easier to train than someone who wouldn’t listen to him, is what he means; Skye joins anyway, because living from shelter to shelter every night is getting tiresome.

When she turns twenty, Miles takes her to the used car lot and they pick up her van. She’s been crashing on his couch for a while now, but the first day she owns a van she turns it into a home. When he sees it he smiles, and it makes her chest tingle, so she takes him to bed. (It’s the first time.)

For a few years, this works. Skye leaves the van parked outside his apartment building when they’re on, and drives to the other end of the town when they’re off. It’s never a relationship as much as it is a mutually beneficial thing. ( _I don’t fall in love, Skye._ He tells her this, but it means: _So don’t you do it either._ )

She has bigger ambitions than waiting for a man to get his head out of his ass and love her. She sets out to find out who her family was, she raises her voice (anonymously) against the government that allows events like New York to happen, and if she occasionally rides Miles in the quiet warmth of her van, well it’s nobody’s business but her own.

 

 

**Agent**

There are two men in the cell with her, and Skye’s a smart cookie, always has been. She wishes she had something, a secret pin with a microscopic camera in the lapel of her blazer, except that she doesn’t wear a blazer and doesn’t have money for gadgets. All her money went into the small recording studio for her laptop, and she’s hoping that the agents haven’t trashed her van.

She knows for sure that they’re not in the city anymore, why would they be? She plays it brave, plays it smug, pins the older one under her gaze and waits for him to crack. She expects he’ll be the bad cop in this routine.

Then the asshole with a marble cut jawline calls her a sweaty cosplay girl, and feels her stomach clench. (Two bad cops? She can take it. She can talk her way out of this.)

Older Agent gives her a knowing little smirk after he leaves her alone with the asshole with his veins full of _veritaserum_ or whatever. It’s definitely flirty, she thinks.

It’s only later, when he starts the car and makes it fly, and smiles at her from the driver’s seat looking all _charm school_ instead of old school, that she thinks _oh shit_. But she can’t afford this. Even if it’s been years since she felt this spark for someone, she can’t afford this spark for Agent Coulson, because she’s going to betray him eventually, and not regret it if it gets her family back.

 

 

**Melinda**

So maybe she has a thing for capable people who treat her with respect and value her, but she’s not always feeling that from May. This one is purely physical.

The woman is a _babe_ , and every time Skye catches her sparring with Ward she has troubles not blushing or looking too closely at the play of muscle on her arms and her back, and yep she definitely checks out Melinda May’s ass too.

It’s a shame on many fronts. First, because even if she _could_ do something about this, May doesn’t trust her anymore since she found her and Miles together; for good reason, whatever. Second, because even if she _did_ something, she’s pretty sure she’d have to train a million years to be prolific enough at eating out that she’d reduce May to a shivering mess (and it would be a goal). Third, because she’s definitely boning Ward.

Later, months later, she’ll be on the receiving end of those punches and kicks and flips. She’ll get the occasional smug, proud grin, the _Well done_ , the _Cover me_ , and it’ll be awesome. What has to happen until then won’t be worth it, not the pain or anger or betrayal or the people getting hurt. But she’ll be on equal footing with May.

By that time, the crush will have faded into almost nothing, focused itself on others (on another).

And then, then she’ll meet her ex-husband, and cheer silently for that reconciliation. (But then that’s a different story. Skye isn’t selfish, when she loves.)

 

 

**Trip**

Frugal. It’s bright and warm like his million dollar smile, and it’s sweet and comfortable. She trusts him with her life, and he trusts her with his.

And then he trusts her with his life so much that he leaves her without his smile, without his warmth, without a tether.

 

 

**Bobbi**

Who in Playground doesn’t have a crush on Bobbi Morse?

She gets it, really, the reason why Jemma has been looking so distraught and acting extra clumsy around the woman. She makes Skye a survival kit for quarantine and calls her a _rockstar_.

In another world, in another universe, where she hasn’t just watched her best friend crumble to dust in front of her ( _because of her_ ) she would feel the flutter again. She’d remember Izzy, and she’d feel flustered but she’d flirt back, and she’d know – she would _know_ \-- that she can give better than the headache she’s getting from her ex-husband.

But this one isn’t meant to happen. This one doesn’t grow.

(A couple of days later, Bobbi’s there next to Calderon when he aims and shoots at her. She hears the _No_ that rips from the woman’s throat. When she sends them both flying, for a moment Skye thinks _now you’re a mockingbird_.)

 

 

**Lincoln**

Not yet. Not real. She’s trying, she is, she just needs him to stay and let them keep him safe, let her show him that there’s life after Afterlife, that there are endless possibilities. She hasn’t kissed anyone in two years and a half, and then she kisses Lincoln.

There’s no spark. It leaves her empty.

But oh, she will keep trying.

 

 

**Phil**

He comes back to the base wearing the same suit from yesterday, his tie primly tied in a elegant knot, and that knot tells the whole story.

(One day ago, she helped him tie it. Daisy only knows one knot, but she does a pretty good job of it. There’s silence and tension while she does it, her knuckles brushing against his throat on accident once, on purpose the second time. They have a fight later. He compartmentalizes. She doesn’t.)

It’s not the same knot.

It makes her sick to her stomach, the surge of envy and possessiveness, the anger and tension. She wants to tell him that he’s going to get hurt, but he’s a big man. And, gods, he comes back with a faint little smile on his face and she hasn’t seen him happy in a while, so she bites her tongue.

Later, in her bunk, she’ll stare at herself in the mirror until she can’t focus on the red skin around her eyes, and snap at herself. _It’ll go away. Focus on your mission._

It doesn’t go away.

 

 

**\+ Phil**

It gets worse, first.

She’s not one to go around saying _I told you so_ , but given that she almost loses an eye in the fight against ATCU and HYDRA, she feels entitled.

Granted, she feels entitled to say it while shaking the metals shackles off of him, and handing him his prosthetic arm back from where _Roz_ left it on the table (undoubtedly to mock him for not being able to just reach for it). “Can’t believe they just left it here, and also, I told you they were trouble.”

“I should’ve listened,” he says, attaching the arm again and flexing his fingers; she practically tastes the anger and self-reprimanding off of him. He’ll have time to punish himself later, when they don’t have a whole facility to clear of Inhumans in cocoons.

She gives him a pat on the shoulder, a little “Come on,” and turns to leave. He stops her, his metal hand wrapped around her wrist.

“Skye,” he whispers, and she thinks _not now, not again_. “Daisy.” So much for compartmentalizing, the guy can’t even tell when they’re on the battleground here. “You’re bleeding,” he adds, quietly, and brushes his thumb over the cut above her eyebrow. It comes back red with her blood.

“Yeah, sorry I took your favorite spot,” she mutters, and stays put, stays grounded. Thinks _touch me again_. Thinks _you haven’t touched me in months, when did we turn into blocks of ice?_

“It doesn’t suit you,” he murmurs, and cups the side of her face with his warm hand, leaving her cheek smudged with her own blood. But Phil can’t stop himself, and Daisy can’t stop wanting him to go on, so it doesn’t matter. “Please never do it again.”

She knows he is joking, so she jokes right back. “Come on, I’d be so hot with an eye-patch. Director material right there.”

“You can have it. No missing eye needed.”

Thankfully, Mack interrupts. (Or, according to Mack a couple of minutes later, unfortunately. _You guys looked pretty cozy in the middle of a clusterfuck_.)

\--

ZephyrOne is airborn by the time the government sends Special Forces in to investigate the explosion in the ATCU facility. There are twenty-two people in orange jello on board, all of them with powers, all of them needing her. When they land at the Cocoon, that’s when the real hardship begins. (She has to help Andrew, even if she can’t prioritize him; she has to dig in deep through all of Jiaying’s texts and figure out how to stop her friend from destroying himself and others with.)

But for now, she deserves this glass of Coulson’s most expensive scotch. He doesn’t know it, because she’s made herself a nest in his office, in his chair, and raided his minibar while Jemma’s still checking him for trauma or injury.

She’s one glass down when he finds her, and grateful that he doesn’t make note of her feet being on the desk. She took her shoes off, at least; in fact, Coulson seems fascinated by the fact that she’s taken off her socks too, and that her toenails are bright blue.

“Sky,” he murmurs, amused, glancing up from her feet to her face. She expects him to want his chair back, but instead of asking for it, he places his flesh hand on her ankles and takes a seat on the edge of the desk.

“This is very _Nanny Fine_ , Phil,” she jokes, and reaches into the desk drawer for another glass of scotch, which she hands him.

“Mister Sheffield,” he says, as way of toast, clinking his glass to hers when she’s filled it, and downing it in one go. His hand never quite leaves her ankle.

She wonders if _Roz_ was here, if the second glass was for her once, if Coulson’s heart is broken or if he feels more betrayed than anything. And it must show on her face, because while she fills up his glass a second time, he sighs.

“I never really thought it would grow into more than what it was.”

Ah, that. She understands that part; going into a relationship headfirst, not because you’re convinced you’re half in love with the person already, but because you just need, you just _need_ , and somewhere there must be someone who is willing to give.

“I’m sorry,” she offers him, and takes a small sip of whiskey.

“You’re s—Daisy. No, _I_ am. If I hadn’t been stupid enough to think that I could handle it, we never would’ve gotten to this point. I’m sorry, for shutting you out every time. Feel free to add another I told you so.”

She is reluctant to do so, but she pulls her feet off the table, and leans forward in his chair, reaching out to cover his hand with hers. “No, I’m still sorry you had to taste betrayal like that. It sucks. There’s just no other way around it, it sucks. I bet you thought she’d prove you wrong, right? Turning out to be good all along?”

He offers a pathetic little smile, and turns his hand over to squeeze her fingers.

“You should have that,” she blurts out, before she can fully shut her mouth. And once that pebble falls, the whole damn breaks. “Shit, Coulson, Phil – you deserve that. But you deserve someone better than the hot, shady lady in charge of a shady organization that puts people into _orange jello_ and treats _this_ ,” she gestures at herself, whiskey sloshing in the glass, “like a disease that has to be cured.”

He looks at her, quietly, for a few seconds, and then allows himself a small little smirk. “She had five Thatcher biographies.”

“ _Ugh_.”

They both share a laugh, in the impossible mess they’re unraveling. But there’s no more judging; Daisy is done judging, she has no place. She was ready to just accept it, would’ve even gritted her teeth through uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinners with the woman, had she turned out to be good and worthy of Coulson. _But she hasn’t, so…_

She pours herself another drink, and leans back in his chair.

\--

At one point he puts on a record, and they move the party to the couch. She makes a comment about how all his offices are so _livable_ , only she adds _lovable_ as an afterthought and has a laugh of it. So does he, for a second.

“I guess it’s time I retired that part of my life for good,” he mutters, shifting to put some distance between them on the couch. Stumbling; god, they’re drunk – are they drunk?

“What? Don’t be stupid, Phil,” she protests, standing up to give her speech. (She’s titled it _Phil Coulson, you deserve love – mine, please, if possible_.) “So what if it didn’t work out with Vincent Price—“

He bursts into laughter. It shocks her, stuns the words right on her tongue, and she doesn’t know why he finds it so funny until she realizes the name slip. ( _So much for being unbiased_.) Awkwardly at first, she joins in the laughter, because that part feels too good to pass up on.

“Well, at least we can laugh about it,” she tells him later, after they’ve caught their breaths.

This time, they’re sitting practically slumped together, the calm after the storm. She looks up at him to check if he’s okay with all this mocking Price, and catches him looking at her, looking at her like he’s looked at her for an entire year, and –

“Daisy…”

 _Oh_.

“Holy shit, you’re joking.” Not the best reaction she’s ever had, and not the most romantic one. So she fixes it, quickly: she kisses him.

\--

“Well…okay.”

Coulson looks behind her to the chair she just knocked over backwards. His chair. She follows his line of sight to check for damages, before turning back to kiss the hollow of his throat.

“Can I say I’ll buy you a new one?” she murmurs, and gets a few more buttons of his shirt open. He shifts on his desk, wraps his legs around her to make her step closer, and pushes his hand under her shirt.

“On _your_ income?”

“Stop furbishing with collectibles, Phil, it’s annoying.”

His fingers tug the cup of her bra down, find her nipple, and she loses herself and presses her hips into him. He doesn’t seem to mind that he’s the one sitting on his desk being ravished _at all_.

“You know there’s a perfectly functional couch you just had to move her away from.”

“You wanted to _change the record_.”

“Well I’m sorry for not wanting to eat you out to The Dave Matthews Band.”

“What’s that about eating me out now?”

\--

The couch is perfect. She loves the couch. Not a collectible, no problem if she makes a mess of it; she doesn’t, the mess being mostly made on Phil’s chin and lips, but just in case.

Her legs are still shivering ( _tremors_ ) by the time he unhooks them from over his shoulders, and joins her on the floor where she eventually slides down to recover.

“Do you need me to –“

“No. We can take it slow.”

She knows he means they can take it sober, and loves him even more for it. If he’s the one who needs reassurance that she meant every word whispered into his skin or these for walls, or it’s her, it don’t matter. They can wait. Take it slow.

She turns and presses a kiss to his cheek, tender. “Yeah, you catch your breath, Director, we’ve got some catching up to do.”

He looks down at her with an amused smile that grows and grows, and Daisy thinks, for one second, _this_ was worth the wait.

**Author's Note:**

> I could talk about hints and references in this fic for a million years. Come talk to me on tumblr @tentaclabia.


End file.
